"The aim of AH procurement was to keep a bunch of MoD (PE), (now DPA I believe) staff really, really, busy"
I think you'll find the majority of AH "procurement" staff were MGO's ILS team. Many moons went by before the DPA Gods realised they needed technical specialists because, surprise surprise, the aircraft contained technical stuff. (At roughly the same time CDP announced DPA didn't need/want such specialists - which made things a bit difficult). And numbers really ramped up when they discovered it had to be specified and then procured. But of course they saved on staff costs by PFI'ing the sim.